Turkey set to receive first-ever US emergency oil shipment

Turkey to Receive First US Emergency Oil Reserve Shipment

A cargo of crude oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is heading to Turkey, marking the first-ever shipment of American emergency reserve oil to the Mediterranean nation, according to ship tracking data reported by Reuters.oedigital

The delivery comes as the United States ramps up exports from its emergency stockpile to allies struggling with severe supply disruptions caused by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil trade normally passes.wikipedia

What We Know About the Shipments

The Greek-flagged tanker North Star, an aframax-class vessel, loaded approximately 680,000 barrels of crude from the Bryan Mound SPR site near Texas City in early April and is expected to arrive at Aliaga, Turkey, in mid-May, according to commodities analytics firm Kpler. A second, larger vessel — the Hong Kong-flagged DHT Antelope — loaded about 1.1 million barrels of Bryan Mound sour crude via ship-to-ship transfer offshore Galveston in late April and is also due to discharge in Turkey by month’s end.oedigital

Ship tracking data also shows U.S. SPR cargoes en route to Italy and the Netherlands. Bloomberg reported in late April that global trading houses had already sold at least 4 million barrels of SPR medium crude to European refiners and were seeking buyers in Asia.bloomberg

A Crisis-Driven Reshuffling of Global Oil Flows

The shipments are part of a coordinated international effort launched in March, when 32 member nations of the International Energy Agency agreed to release approximately 400 million barrels from strategic reserves worldwide. The U.S. share amounts to 172 million barrels, to be released over roughly 120 days. As of late April, the Department of Energy had released 17.5 million barrels from the SPR since the drawdown began.reuters

The crisis traces back to the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran on February 28, which prompted Tehran to effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz. Though a ceasefire was announced on April 8, ship traffic through the strait remains far below pre-war levels. On Sunday, President Donald Trump dismissed Iran’s latest peace proposal as “totally unacceptable,” raising fears that the disruption will persist.tufts

Turkey’s Strategic Position

Turkey has been directly affected by the Hormuz disruption — roughly 20 percent of its crude oil demand is supplied by Gulf countries through shipments transiting the strait, according to a Turkish parliamentary assessment. At the same time, Turkey has emerged as a potential alternative energy corridor, with exports through the Iraq-to-Ceyhan pipeline resuming in mid-March and expected to scale up to 250,000 barrels per day.turkiyetoday

U.S. crude exports have surged to record levels amid the crisis, reaching 5.2 million barrels per day in April according to Kpler data, as Asian and European buyers scramble for alternatives to Middle Eastern supply.cnbc